"I, uh. I sold cheese to some rats," said Silas, regretting his words even as they spilled from his mouth.

"Charisma check: Failed," joked Eve.

Headmaster Ainsley stifled an obvious laugh, while a heavily muscled, middle-aged lady wearing an open silky robe and nothing else aside from a USA flag patterned sports bra and some workout shorts let out a boisterous cackle.

Silas waited for the other shoe to drop, but aside from the bent over woman slapping her thigh, continuing to chuckle way too hard at something he didn't think was all that funny, the only other noise in the room came from Ai's droning voice coming back in to focus for him, as she continued her monotonous repeating of the other prince's not so subtle self brag.

He considered the woman who defeated the entire dungeon in ten days, a feat none of the locals could accomplish apparently. Another summoned Hero, also from the US of A by the looks of it. She—

Ai continued her translating, "What great feats has your hero—"

"Ai," he snapped. "Shut up for now."

The sparkly black elfin child android saluted, left fist to chest, left foot stomped, right hand remaining by the sonic blaster on her hip. "Shutting up, Sir."

The rest of the room's occupants seemed confused, glancing between the muscled woman and Silas as his group joined the gathering of people in what seemed a large indoor hall, where they were having some kind of luncheon party where standing people ate food from platters spread out on small, tall circular tables spaced throughout the room, sized for two or three people to comfortably snack and chat. The headmaster and Silas stayed just inside the door while the guard commander prince took long quick steps towards his brother.

Most of the hall still stared at Silas, waiting for an answer, the other prince included, the man appearing rather imposing with literal red flames dancing atop his head. That, or someone set his hair on fire and the poor man had yet to notice. Maybe that was why the guard commander seemed to be in a hurry? Some other people had similar elemental features on or about their person, so perhaps not.

"Eve, what great feats have I accomplished?"

"You were falsely imprisoned. Focus on that."

"Good point."

"Lieutenant Ai, from now on, only repeat my words, as I speak them, and only when I indicate you should do so. Aside from that you're my silent protection detail. Non-lethal measures only, unless my life is on the line."

She saluted again, stomp and everything. "Very good, Sir."

"What's he saying," someone from the crowd whispered.

Silas nodded to Ai, then began talking. "Shortly after a group of kids abducted me from my world, they abandoned me in your city dump. From there I managed to get arrested, I think for bringing my own belongings out of the dump, belongings which were then taken from me. Given I've been stuck in a cell since then, the only real contact I've had with the denizens of The Gray Depths was with a group of sentient rats, who liked me for my ability to summon cheese on demand."

"That poor girl," whispered someone from the audience.

"Why won't he just shut up and let her speak?" said another.

"…can't even understand him."

He nodded to Ai again, then pointed to himself. "I'm Silas." He pointed to Ai. "She is Ai, an assistant I summoned to translate my words for you all."

Ai mimicked his gestures, appropriately modified to point at himself then herself, he was happy to see.

A girl with bright pink hair done in curls hurried forward and knelt down before Silas's android, scooping her up in a hug, pulling Ai into the ruffles of her cream colored dress. "You poor thing. He just plucked you from your home?"

Ai stood expressionless, her head tilted up to Silas, awaiting orders.

The girl pushed Ai away to arm's length, still holding her shoulders. "You're so cute! It's no wonder he snatched you up." She glared at Silas. "The brute."

"It's fine," said Silas, to then realize not only had he said the wrong thing, but his words wouldn't be understood anyhow. He turned to the headmaster and gestured at the girl. "Can you explain?"

The old man gave Silas an odd look. "I have no idea how you called that girl here, but it does seem a bit cruel to pluck her from her home plane."

He groaned. "She's not real, or she wasn't. She's from a book series I read."

The headmaster nodded. "Ah. You conjured her. Conjuring is creating something from nothing. Summoning is to bring something from elsewhere to you."

Silas waved him off. He knew that. "Yeah, fine." He shook his head at Ai, who was reaching for her sonic blaster. "Ai, explain how I conjured you."

Ai frowned. "You didn't make me, Sir. I existed before receiving this assignment."

"It's how the skill works," Silas explained to the frowning old man. "They're not blank slates. I call characters from their own stories. So, in a way I summoned her from her world, yet in a way I didn't."

"Very curious. Might you…" The headmaster rolled his eyes. "Princess Dara. Stop trying to drag away the Hero's translator. She's a construct of sorts."

The princess, because of course she was a princess, stopped tugging on Ai's arm to ask her. "Are you a construct?"

Ai, of course, answered, "I'm an android designated to the position of Lieutenant in the Empire's fleet, currently on special assignment."

""The Empire"" cried the peanut gallery.

Silas shook his head. "Ai, say the full name of the Empire."

"Empire of the Infinite Night," she responded, which earned some confused whispering.

The princess focused on what she found most important. "An android?"

"A robot given elfin features."

"Elfin?"

Before Ai tried to explain, Silas said, "Ai, say, 'Humanoid, but with pointy ears.'"

Ai did, pointing to her ears. This caused some muttering.

"Robot?" asked the princess, not giving up.

"A machine capable of following complex instructions. Mine are a network of guidelines and priorities connected by logic chains, to best resemble elfin thought patterns."

The princess took a step back, asking the headmaster, "She's a golem?"

He scratched his beard while studying Ai, looking as if he wanted to take her apart. "A very advanced one, it seems."

"How much," snapped the princess at Silas.

"Excuse me?" he asked, though he knew what she meant.

She looked to the headmaster. "How much did he say?"

After a pause while the headmaster decided how to respond, the muscular exhibitionist strode forward and slapped Silas on the shoulder, knocking off a few HP. "Sounds like you got dealt a shi… bad hand. Least you're out now, kid. There's all kinds of fun to be had in this world." She frowned down at the laptop bag he still carried. "Is that a laptop? Well, here they're a novelty I suppose. How will you charge it, though?"

He saw no harm in answering. "Mana keeps it going. It's summoned through a skill of mine."

"Is that what you do then, summon stuff?"

"No, I—" He paused and considered. "More or less, yeah. Or, well, I conjure stuff, to be specific, meaning I'm making stuff from nothing, or mana I guess, not pulling existing stuff from somewhere else. You?"

She grinned and flexed an arm, which seemed to swell and grow disproportionately bigger than the rest of her for a moment, but maybe it was just a trick of the light. "I punch stuff. This world is great, kid. Endless potential for those who put in the work and make a smart Bond. Plenty of monsters in need of killing here, without all the bleeding heart liberal fu—idiots doing like they do back home, trying to protect the wildlife."

He didn't quite see how the two were close to similar issues, at all, but neither did he want to argue with a pile of muscles. Not when he was pretty sure, if forced to pick one of the two sides he cared for not in the least, he would favor the bleeding heart liberal category slightly more than the alternative.

US politics were a topic he would have been happy to never hear discussed again, yet somehow they managed to follow him into this other world. To him politics felt like a choice between getting shot in the head or getting mauled by a bear. In the end, the only winning move was not to play.

"How about a nice game of chess?" he asked Eve.

"Now?"

"Quoting a movie."

"I think tic tac toe might be more your speed."

He decided to ignore political discussions and hoped the other Hero would take the hint.

"Silas, right?" she continued. "Name's Karen, and if you don't like it I'll ask to speak with your manager." Her eyes gleamed with joy, seeming happy someone else would get her joke.

"Why does she keep saying that?" whispered the princess to no one in particular.

Silas gave a halfhearted grin. "Right. I'm Silas. What's going on, anyhow? The—I guess he's a prince, Guard Commander Marindore got a note then we came over here. I thought I was being summoned by the King."

She lifted and dropped her shoulders, flexing her entire upper body in the process. "Just a gathering of sorts. Prince Bomil wanted to show me off, I think, after I cleared out the dungeon. No one's done it in generations apparently. He and some others got trapped down there. Decided to try a risky ritual to summon a beast of unimaginable power, instead they got my dying asss…inine self. They explained the basics of their magic Bond things, and I figured out something to help me get rid of the cancer and get all swole like I always wanted."

"Like a self healing factor?" That was kind of cool, he had to admit.

"Give me a few days and I can get your muscles looking just as impressive, chimed in Eve.

"Only if you want me to die inside."

"I need you alive, so I suppose I'll hold off on any external changes."

"Wait, what else are you—"

Karen had continued talking. "…so after I cleared the floor they were stuck on I just kept going down and down. Apparently most people avoid Bonding with a concept, but they told me the potential of your Bonded thing is what limits some people, which is why it is not that great to use regular, weak animals. Yet the poor here do that, because even a weak Bond is better than no Bond. Before I spent a lot of time meditating, focusing on self-actualization and self-improvement, how to focus on what I could control and accept what I could not, you know? I was in a bad place for a while, but this stuff really helped, you know? Pushing yourself to be the best you."

Silas opened his mouth, but the princess cut in. "Stop ignoring me!"

He glanced at her. "You don't understand a word I'm saying."

Karen pulled a ring off her pinky finger. "Borrow this for now."

"For me?" the princess asked as she took it.

"To borrow," Karen said again once the ring was on. "I feel like that when talking to everyone, otherwise."

On the one hand, Silas was getting annoyed at his need to talk through Ai. On the other, when it was safe for him to pass out Eve would be giving him his linguistic patch, which he was looking forward to less than a needle in his eye.

He understood the idea of the process, to add an entire new language to his brain and map it all in such a way he will associate previous knowledge with the new information. He also knew the process was pure sci-fi nonsense he used to handwave an easy way for his character to speak the local languages. Nonsense he would now be subjected to. Eve had reassured him by saying she kept the backup copies of his brain constantly up to date, so if anything went wrong she could just restore from a backup.

Silas got poked in the arm.

"I said what's her name," pouted the princess.

"Ai," he answered, thinking maybe he should let Eve do the language patch then and there. One way or the other, he'd get some peace and quiet.

Karen snorted. "That's original."

He shrugged. "It's from this space opera series. First book is called 'Sexy Aliens Abducted My Girlfriend,' so, yeah. The twist was that the girlfriend wasn't actually an alien all along. The story itself wasn't very good, but I liked the author's world building enough to keep reading the series."

"I don't think this is working," said the princess, fiddling with her borrowed magic ring. "I understand your words individually, but not as a whole."

Silas sighed. Translation magic was hard to get right everywhere it seemed.